Workers prepare Christmas lights for Bowling Green’s ‘Downtown Lights Up’

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) -Dec. 2 is a big day in Bowling Green that can get almost anyone in the Christmas spirit.

The Christmas lights for ‘Downtown Lights Up’ will be one of the main attractions at Fountain Square Park.

Since October, nine City of Bowling Green Landscape Division workers has been preparing for the event, rain or shine.

“I think it’s a really unique event. People come from all over to see this, and it’s not just the first night (the lights) it’s lit. We keep them up all through December and January,” said The City of Bowling Green Landscape Division Manager, Jay Dougherty.

On Friday, Dec. 2, community members from near and far will gather downtown to watch the lights shine, by way of kicking off the Christmas season.

Dougherty says it’s still amazing to watch, and tough to create, even after 20 years of doing it.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot harder work than probably what people imagine, but it’s fun and it’s rewarding,” said Dougherty.

Dougherty says that taking down the lights will take just as much work as it takes to put them up, so after the month of January, the crew will spend at least a month taking it all backdown.

“There are literally thousands of strands of lights, and each strand has thirty lights on it, so it’s very easily you could estimate that there was up to 100,000 lights out here,” said Dougherty.

The lights will make their debut in Fountain Square Park on Friday, Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. and will stay up throughout the month of January.

The workers even go as far as burying the cords to assure no one trips over them.

“Well, we all come down here for the lighting ceremony so we can turn them on and we just kind of hang out and are very happy when everything is working properly,” said the Dougherty.

There will also be plenty of other events going on around ‘Downtown Lights Up.’

This year, there is one new tradition that has been added to the fun and that is the holiday window decorating contest. The voting for the best window display is live and folks can vote all the way through Friday, December 2nd here.

Other events on December 2nd in downtown Bowling Green include:

-Christmas on College Street at City Hall 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

-SOKY Marketplace’s Mistletoe Market from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

-The Gallery Hop from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

-SKYPAC’s tree lighting 5:30 p.m.

-Warren Co. Public Library Grinch event at the Capitol

This is all while the SOKY Marketplace’s ice skating rink will be in full swing, Santa will make a stop by Fountain Square Park all while fun games and activities take over Circus Square Park.

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